


That Unequal'd Fire and Rapture

by yuletide_archivist



Category: HOMER - Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by brighty</p><p>Achilles and Patroclus, as youths. Events may occur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Unequal'd Fire and Rapture

**Author's Note:**

> This is fic as written by Alexander Pope: the epigram and endnote are directly lifted from his translation. Yes, certain proper nouns are not  
> those which Achilles and Patroclus would have used; they'd be speaking Greek. Pope uses entirely Roman names: I only used the Greek names for deities when the Roman ones didn't fit in my various internal and couplet rhyming schemes. Or when I felt like it.
> 
> Written for victoria p.

 

 

The boughs of a low tree gently swept the surface of the inlet, as the sun rose higher in the sky, propelled by Helios' chariot, shining light to the deepest crevasses and highest peaks, as he made his inexorable way across the sky. The riverside copse hushed all sound, making the simple act of speaking seem a trespass against the unseen nymph who guarded these woods. With the soft rush of wind, the nymph-tended trees would whisper, calling out softly to anyone who could hear:

_Now rosie morn' ascend the court of Jove,_  
lifts up her light, and opens day above.  
The field shall prove how perjuries succeed,  
and chains or death avenge their impious deed.  
Achilles with Patroclus took his way,  
where near the river hollow vessels lay. 

Crashing towards the hallowed ground, Achilles rustled though the bushes. He had begun the journey to this spot with the grace and skill of a cat, but was now as quiet as a mockingbird. The fearful rush down the frank sandy hills had worn him, and now, Achilles' sole goal was to reach this place before Patroclus could.

Jumping though the smashed branches, Patroclus followed closely on his younger cousin's heels. The sun glinted off both men, giving them a golden shine, as a reward for their exertions on the present excursion. Achilles, still beardless and slight, was narrowly in the lead, a reward for his abstinence from yesterday's hardly-mulled wine.

Rushing to the clearing, Achilles nearly skidded to a halt, breathing deeply. Patroclus came in, swiftly behind, narrowly missing his friend, but compensating by offering a hearty slap to the back.

"I wish, occasionally, that you could constrain yourself to more noble or appropriate actions of congratulation." Achilles had long tried to reform Patroclus, turning him to a being more resembling a soldier and lord than a country labourer.

"Achilles, if you ever want to enjoy this world, you will have to behave as though you are like the rest of our seething mass; you are now only a strange little child. Feel that anasakardia, the light of the heart, and then you will be like one of us men." Patroclus took advantage of his greater height to muss Achilles' hair; in turn, Achilles shook his head violently to escape this endearing, although facetious, display. Both shortly sat in the clearing, separately and quietly contemplating each other, the woods, or perhaps more base things.

For nearly a quarter of an hour, Achilles deflected various projectiles, physical and verbal, from Patroclus. Achilles had aimed to finish whittling a comb, a commemoration for his mother's imminent return from far lands to the south, but occupied by the incessant talk, the wood and knife lay untouched.

"But you must see that the laws are not entirely of the command of Jupiter, for Juno and the fellows serve punishments and offer rebuttals: he cannot be the sole ruler of this all. Where could he find the time to watch it; there are so many women bathing!" Patroclus had given up the barrage, and had turned to philosophy, although not without ribaldry, in hopes of drawing Achilles out.

The realm of the mind, often unaccustomed to by soldiers, had been schooled in both men by the wise centaur Cheiron; Patroclus had taken quickly to the study of Themis, her natural laws and orders, even as Achilles had resentfully taken up the studies of ancient battles and long-ago Gods and men. Ever the resentful student, Achilles had, however, found knowledge in the tales of rhetoric and strategy, and could be wound into a discussion lasting many hours, on the whys and wherefores of life.

"I could not tell you, honestly, for Jupiter may be beyond man's mind, even as he moves from place to place, and his laws are our own; we cannot fail there." In a firmly square answer, Achilles attempted to guide Patroclus away from endless pondering; this was not to fare well, as Achilles noted as soon as he had mentioned it.

Patroclus turned startlingly livid. "After the careful tutelage and wisdom gleaned, all you can respond with is this dream of order? Cheiron would shake his head at you."

Achilles sighed, contemplating the graying sky, resigned to the stream of dialogue behind him. It was as though he had unleashed a battalion onto the field of battle when he had only meant to let cattle to pasture: instead of calm respite, the afternoon was to be filled with talk.

"What say you to this matter? And do not tell me that it is beyond your mind, for I have heard that excuse many a time; it is for the lazy student, not one with thine's mind." Achilles nearly sighed again, but caught Patroclus' despairing look, and attempted an alternate route; not admitting to having gone deaf, he began to talk on a more favourable topic- weaponry.

"Brother, I will give you that much of your man-made laws may present us with that which works," to forestall comment, Achilles shirked dialogue, holding up a hand to stop objections. "However, it is too heady for a summer's day. Let us move to lighter things, leaving those droning recitations of Cheiron behind.

"You have seen the golden-encrusted cabinet of Aeacus, in my father's house, have you not? The grandfather spears, swords and shields make a worthy arsenal, a fearsome force. The celestial lightenings play on the helms and they almost glow, waiting for their hour to come, to be wielded as a living ray." Patroculs opened his mouth, as if to speak of the virtues of those without such weapons, but Achilles, wound in the delightful play of words, could not be paused.

"It is flashing fire! My most favoured is that with the disfigured handle; melted, it is said, in a blaze from Athene herself, as a repayment to the keenly-aware Aeacus, who, fleeing from Thessaly and the anger of Jove, defended himself from marauding stags. She has tempered the hilt to withstand any wrath, not even a Titan could break the forged power of it."

The skies opened, as Achilles finished expostulating. The clouds were shot though with the rain; as the lightening came, it illuminated the lands though the masterful hands of Jove. The previous scene, idyllic and green, was at once replaced by wrath, or so it seemed to Achilles and Patroclus, unversed in the ways of appeasing to Gods of the highest realm, or basic meteorology. A trivial digression on weaponry can no more summon the rain than an idle thought on the evening meal, or indeed, anything save a witchery, but Patroclus let loose a laugh that certainly implied such.

"What was it, cousin, that you did? Never content to let Gaia rest, you must disturb her with rambles and worries over swords?" Glancing at the nearly-still figure of Achilles, Patroclus gave a slight shiver at the expression of seriousness on Achilles' face.

"It was not only a ramble over a sword; it was a discussion over the finest steel in Peleus's home. And that, my cousin, dear Patroclus, is no mere sword, it is a flashing bronze blade of fine work..." As he grew more passionate, Achilles rolled off his back, propping himself up with his elbows, even as he tried to describe the dimensions of the weapon with his hands. "It was this long," and with his final grand gesture, and his arms no longer any support Achilles slipped, and ended up face-down in the newly-forming mud.

Dotted with raindrops, Achilles wiped the mud and muck out of his eyes, in time to see Patroclus laughing at what seemed to be something very funny. Achilles was not amused.

"It is just that you are so severe, oftentimes. It gives me the quakes, thinking about how you will fare with the fairer sex. Oh, I can only imagine it, the brave Achilles facing down the new enemy!" Propped up against a tree, Patroclus shook his head in mirth. His mop of flattened curls, under a circlet band, bounced along, creating a general air of good humor. Achilles could not but help to be carried along by such moods, usually, and Patroclus did aim to cheer.

Achilles looked glaringly at Patroclus from where he stood, attempting to arrange his tunic so that he did not seem to be a shepherd, pulled though a hedge backwards. Achilles felt that this sort of thing always happened to him, and that Patroclus found him easy to make fun of. "I will do right by them. Those feelings of the flesh will come to us all, even if you seem to revel in them," and here, Achilles made a lewdish gesture, and finishing primly, "I do not, and shall not."

The rain came down harder, but they still did not move from the grove, being sheltered among the boughs. Patroclus was very nearly dry, and Achilles, though spotted with mud, had only the first large drops playing across his shoulders and hair. This particular spot, a bend in the river, and sheltered by unusually verdant trees, had been long favoured as a private spot by the local young people, sufficiently remote, but not desolate, like the stories would imply: but when Achilles and Patroclus arrived, it was generally empty, Patroclus claiming that their reputations as troublemakers preceded them. Achilles privately thought that the others had fled from Patroclus' often lascivious and always noisy, ways, but the truth lay in the fact that none of the other who might have snuck off there wanted to associate with the strange and possibly Gods-touched, cousins.

"We all say that as youths, but oh, the flesh. You'll find it yet, and that stride homewards will be in triumph, quite gladly, I can tell you. You can hardly turn that joyfulness down, and never think of disdaining my advice. Never; mark it, Achilles."

The rain dripped off the leaves, as the two friendlily competed and humorised. Their locus amoeus had remained high and dry, this secret place, filled with light and Gaia's good hospitality. The gray mists lead the sky to the ground, wrapping the wet lands in a shroud, hiding Achilles and Patroclus in the clouds.

_That pleas'd a God, succeeded to his charms,  
not conscious of those loves, long hid from fame's arms._

 


End file.
